The present disclosure relates to a refrigerator.
In general, refrigerators are home appliances for storing foods at a low temperature in a storage space that is covered by a door. For this, refrigerators cool the inside of the storage space by using cool air generated by being heat-exchanged with a refrigerant circulated through a refrigeration cycle to store foods in an optimum state.
In recent years, refrigerators have become increasingly multi-functional with changes of dietary lives and gentrification of products, and refrigerators having various structures and convenience devices for convenience of users and for efficient use of internal spaces have been released.
The storage space of the refrigerator may be opened/closed by the door. Also, refrigerators may be classified into various types according to an arranged configuration of the storage space and a structure of the door for opening and closing the storage space.
The refrigerator door may be classified into a rotation-type door that opens and closes a storage space through rotation thereof and a drawer-type door that is inserted and withdrawn in a drawer type.
Also, the drawer-type door is often disposed in a lower region of the refrigerator. Thus, when the drawer-type door is disposed in the lower region of the refrigerator, a user has to turn its back to take out a basket or foods in the drawer-type door. If the basket or the foods are heavy, the user may feel inconvenient to use the basket or may be injured.
In order to solve such a limitation, various structures are being developed in which the drawer-type door is capable of being elevated.
Representatively, a refrigerator in which a lifting mechanism for elevation a bin provided in a refrigerating compartment is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 9,377,238.
However, this technique according to related art may have a structure in which the lifting mechanism for the elevation is disposed and exposed outside the bin to cause a serious safety problem. Also, there is a limitation that an outer appearance is poor due to the structure of the lifting mechanism exposed to the outside.
Also, since a driving part is exposed to the outside, noise during operation of the driving part may be transmitted to the outside as it is, which may cause the user's dissatisfaction.
Also, since the lifting mechanism is disposed inside the refrigerator, storage capacity within the refrigerator may be significantly reduced. This may cause a limitation that storage efficiency of the refrigerator is greatly reduced due to the loss in storage capacity of the whole refrigerator.
Also, the lifting mechanism is provided inside the refrigerator. Thus, separation of the door and separation of the lifting mechanism are required for service of the lifting mechanism to deteriorate serviceability.
Also, a driving part of the lifting mechanism has a structure for elevating the bin by pushing one end of the support assembly. Therefore, when a large heavy structure or a heavy object is disposed inside the bin, sufficient force for the elevation may not be provided. Of course, although a motor of the driving part increases in size to solve this limitation, there are limitations that an internal volume loss and noise become larger, and the manufacturing cost increases.
Also, the lifting mechanism supports one side of the entire bottom surface of the bin due to the arrangement position of the driving part. Therefore, in the state where the bin is filled with a stored product, an eccentric load may occur. Here, a serious problem may arise in stability due to the eccentric load acting in a state in which the door is withdrawn, there is a limitation that the elevation operation is not performed smoothly.
Also, the lifting mechanism has a structure in which the entire bin is elevated. In order to elevate the bin, the bin has to be completely withdrawn from the storage space of the refrigerator. Also, when the bin is elevated, the bin has to be withdrawn up to a position at which the bin does not interfere with the upper door and the refrigerator body. However, in this structure, when the door is completely withdrawn, a loss of cold air within the refrigerator may cause a limitation in stability, and there is a possibility that stability is deteriorated by an occurrence of deflection due to the load of the lifting mechanism. Thus, it is necessary to supplement the draw-out structure, and there is a limitation in that it is difficult to be applied to the structure of the bin or door which is substantially large in size.